She doesn’t have any bait for the mousetraps, so she’s thinking of driving over to the grocery store or calling Sam to see what they might have in the kitchen on Mohegan Trail. Maybe, if she asks nicely, Sam will bring her some little bits of cheese or smears of peanut butter for the traps. Amy thinks of the poor little mice, intrepidly setting out for new territories, maybe to gather food for the young ones, and—
She can’t do it, not yet.
She sits in a second-row seat and looks at the stage, imagining opening night. The set builders have been hard at work, and Leonato’s villa is beginning to rise from the floor. Even though Amy knows that outside the theater’s door Block Island is bustling with the heat and brio of a summer afternoon, in here it really could be sixteenth-century Messina.
Sometimes, when Sam was inMockingbird,Amy sat in the back of the theater and listened to the director give notes. She’d loved the theater at those times, before the actors went back to their dressing rooms for costumes and makeup and the audience filed in, the building in one way stripped of its magic but in anotherway even more magical. She’d lovedSamextra at those times too, the way she was so riveted by the director, so respectful of the actors and the production.
A shadow falls over her, breaking her out of her trance. It’s Timothy.
“Hey,” he says. “I wondered if you needed help with that toilet. Jane told me about it.”
“How did Jane know?”
“Set builders, I guess.”
Amy rolls her eyes, figuring it’s probably dim enough in the theater that he won’t see that far. “I got it,” she said, indicating the plunger. “It was just a clog. I’m sure the great and good Timothy Fleming doesn’t really know his way around a toilet plunger. I have to get a plumber in, though. There might be a deeper problem in the pipes.”
He winces. “Yeah, I don’t really know my way around toilet plungers or pipes.”
“I’m guessing at home you have people for this sort of thing.”
He lowers himself into the seat next to her. “Well, sure. But you have people too.”
She stares at him. “Ihave people?”
“You’re married to a plumber!”
“I’m married,” Amy says, “to anHVAC guy.Not the same.” If Timothy feels chastened after this correction, he doesn’t show it. He glances at her, then bumps her lightly with his elbow, playfully, the way he used to to get her out of a bad mood when she was, what? Seven, eight. A kid.
She pulls her elbow away.
“Geez, Amy. I thought we were okay about the paycheck thing.”
“We arefineabout the paycheck thing,” she says untruthfully.
“So why are you so prickly with me? I’m sorry I got here too late. I would have plunged the toilet. I’m sure I could have figured it out.”
The words bubble up inside her, and she thinks, If I say these next words, I can’t take them back. “It’s fine. It’s not like I’m not used to doing the dirty work for both of us.”
“Oh, come on.Whatare you talking about, Amy?”
Isn’t this, after all, the place she was trying to get to? Well, she’s here now: she may as well stay for a while. “Really, Timothy? Think back to the last time you were in this state, and why, and for how long.”
He’s silent for a moment, and then he says, “Mom?”
“Of course, Mom. What else?”
Timothy sighs, a long, possibly irritated sigh. “Fine,” he says. “Is that what this is about? Okay, fine. Let’s do this. But I’m not doing it without a drink.”
“Fine,” she says, like it’s a threat.
“Let’s go to Ballard’s. It’s probably happy hour,” Timothy says. He rises from his seat and starts up the aisle.
Unhappy hour, thinks Amy. She finds a safe place for the plunger backstage, locks the theater, and follows Timothy out into the late afternoon. She stands for a few seconds, blinking, getting herself accustomed to the sunlight, and when her eyes are adjusted she sees that Timothy has gone on ahead of her. “Typical,” she mutters. She crosses the street and heads east on Water Street, walk-jogging until she catches up with him. “Hey,” she says. “Wait up.” He wears his Red Sox cap pulled low over his eyes, and he slouches a little when he walks. He pauses, and they walk together.
“Outside or in?” he asks her when they get to Ballard’s, and she says, “Outside, but only if there’s an umbrella.” Though it’s four-thirty, the sun is still strong, and Amy’s skin is fairer than Timothy’s.
They take a seat at one of the outdoor tables.
